


A Bump in the Road

by leopharry



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Dave Strider - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Daycare, Baby Dirk Strider, Cal is also a puppet here, Feferi and Nepeta are minor characters, For almost all of it, Humanstuck, Lets be real it's Dave and Karkat, M/M, Nonverbal Dirk, Some Swearing, There's going to be some swears, not a real character, sorry for the misleading, time lapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-26 00:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7552498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leopharry/pseuds/leopharry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After earning his Master's degree in education, Karkat can't find a teaching job, so Kanaya gets him a job as a toddler teacher at a daycare, much to his chagrin. Dirk is his quietest and most behaved student; in fact, Karkat has never heard him speak, and he's curious. What kind of person could raise such a child? And just how long will Karkat's patience last in a room full of two year olds?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Bump in the Road

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the [Davekat Appreciation Network](http://thegoshdangdavekatgang.tumblr.com/)'s 1111 followers Special Event. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr [here.](http://leopharry.tumblr.com/)

Six years. Six long years of intense study and hard work, writing papers and grading papers and making lesson plans and teaching lessons. Dealing with snotty kids and bratty kids and (rarely) good kids. Dealing with douchey professors and snobby teachers and classes that made him want to tear his hair out. Six long, _loooooong_ years.

And Karkat could not find a single teaching job opening within fifty miles.

Go figure, right? Go fucking figure that everybody else in his major would snatch up all the jobs first. Because for once--the first time in six god damn years, he’d be the first to point out--he decided to take a break and go on vacation. He visited his family in Virginia for a week, and it had been lovely.

But then he came home, and all his classmates were abuzz with the job offers they’d taken, which school district and which grade. Karkat hadn’t been able to so much as send out his resume. And by the time he got home, it didn’t matter; he called almost every school district in Texas, and not a single one had a single opening.

And the worst thing about it was that he was now overqualified for the kinds of jobs he’d had when he was an undergrad. He called the restaurant where he’d worked from the day he moved to Texas until he started student teaching, and they told him that they’d take him back but they were actually about to downsize, sorry, good luck though. So he applied to other restaurants. Nothing.

Despite how much he’d been told he wouldn’t be able to handle retail, he tried those places too, but almost everywhere he applied had just hired a bunch of teenagers fresh out of school for the summer, but we’ll keep your application on file in case someone doesn’t work out.

Karkat was screwed.

He had enough money that he’d taken out on a loan that he could stay in his apartment for, at most, another month. He could talk to his landlord about an extension (he’d lived in his apartment for six years and never once missed a payment, so he was in pretty good standing there), and that would give him maybe another two weeks. If he called his dad and his brother, they could probably scrounge up enough to get him that month’s rent, but he’d have to be pretty damn frugal with the rest of his bills, and he probably wouldn’t be able to eat for a while, but at least he’d have another month, right?

He dropped his head heavily on the table and groaned.

 

* * *

 

“You know,” Kanaya suggested one day when he met her out for coffee. “The daycare where I work is looking for a teacher. It’s toddler aged, so definitely not anything you’ve studied, but I can put in a good word for you, if you want.”

Karkat scoffed. “Anybody who lets me within fifty feet of a toddler should be arrested for child endangerment,” he told her.

Nevertheless, he filled out an application, and, after a background check, fingerprinting, a drug test, and an interview that lasted half an hour and during which Karkat said possibly five words total, two weeks later, he was the new toddler teacher at Children’s Choice Daycare and Pre-K.

 

* * *

 

Although she was usually placed in the infant classroom, the director (a very nice, very loud, and very talkative middle aged woman named Feferi) decided that, to help get him broken in, Kanaya would be his assistant teacher for a couple of days. Karkat was very grateful for this; Kanaya knew exactly what Karkat would need to know, and told him in such a way that he didn’t feel like a giant idiot.

 ......

“Karkat, toddlers typically don’t know what ‘desperate’ means,” she informed him.

“Oh,” Karkat said, then turned back to the child. “I needed a job _really badly_ , then.”

“Oh, okay,” the little girl (Roxy, Kanaya told him. Her name was Roxy. He’d remember that one soon enough) chirped, then walked back over to the stuffed animals she was playing with.

 ......

“Karkat, I know exactly what the next words out of your mouth are going to be, and I’m going to cut you off now before you get yourself fired,” Kanaya sighed, grabbing one child from the precariously stacked pile of blocks he’d been climbing on.

Karkat grumbled and grabbed the other two, then kicked their tower over for good measure before they managed to get themselves hurt. This was met with a round of loud screams and tears, and, feeling guilty, Karkat sat down to help them rebuild.

 ......

“Karkat, it’s just a dirty diaper, it’s not going to bite you,” Kanaya said exasperatedly.

Karkat scrunched his nose up, holding the child as far away from him as his arms would allow. “It smells like sh--bad. Really bad. Don’t I get a grace period or something? Some time to adjust? You can’t just throw a guy right in here and expect him to say ‘Boy, I sure am excited to change this shiiii--smelly diaper! I can’t believe, after six long, grueling years of schooling, a mountain of student loan debt, and a job search that landed me in the square opposite of where I wanted to be at this point in my life, I have found myself here, ready and raring to go change this fu--this diaper.’”

Kanaya rolled her eyes, took Mituna from Karkat’s outstretched hands and quickly, easily, and without even holding her nose, changed his dirty diaper.

 

* * *

 

So, Karkat considered his first day something of a success. He managed not to swear in front of the children, at least, so as far as he was concerned, he was already doing better than he’d anticipated.

It was nearing five o’clock, when Karkat was scheduled to go home, and there was only one kid left in his classroom. Kanaya had told him before she left to let someone in the infant room go home that his name was Dirk Strider, and Karkat had barely realized he was there for most of the day. He wasn’t sure the kid had so much as opened his mouth since Karkat had gotten there; if he had, Karkat sure hadn’t heard whatever came out of it. He had played by himself, never got into anyone else’s face or took toys from anybody or fought when someone took toys from him. He just got up and grabbed a new toy and carried on like nothing had happened.

At five o’clock on the dot, Karkat had just determined he’d be leaving late tonight when a man wearing a very nice, probably expensive suit and a pair of very darkly tinted aviator shades walked over.

“Hey, Dirk, ready to--hello,” the man’s face, which had been expressionless, dropped into one of immediate suspicion and curiosity. “Who are you?”

“Um. I’m. Karkat. Mr. Karkat, I mean,” Karkat mumbled, unaccustomed to being addressed like he didn’t belong somewhere. It had been a long time since his last student teaching job. “I’m the new toddler teacher.”

“Oh,” the man said, and as if it had never existed, the suspicion and curiosity were gone, and he was stoic and unreadable once again. “Hi. I’m Dave. And hey,” he said, his face brightening up a little as he leaned over to look behind Karkat. Karkat turned and almost jumped when he saw Dirk standing there. “Hey little man. How was your day?”

Dirk didn’t say anything, just looked pointedly at Dave, then down at the gate.

“Oh, right. Sorry, little guy. I’ll let you out.” Dave unlocked the gate and Dirk walked calmly to his side. He already had his little orange backpack in his hands. Karkat could see the weird puppet Kanaya said he had to have with him at all times peeking out from where the zipper didn’t fully close.

“I hope he wasn’t too bad for you today,” Dave said, putting a hand to rest on top of Dirk’s head, a note of tension in his voice.

Karkat raised an eyebrow. “Bad? No. I don’t think I heard him say a word all day. He was the best behaved kid in that madhouse,” he scoffed.

“Aw, Dirk, what did I tell you about talking, little guy? You gotta open up a little, right?” Dave said, dropping to his knees in front of Dirk and looking right into his eyes. Dirk nodded, but his mouth remained clamped firmly shut. Dave sighed, and said to Karkat, “It’s kind of a work in progress. I don’t get it; I can’t get the kid to shut up at home.” Then he stood and said, “Well, time we hit the ol’ dusty trail, huh, little guy?” He looked at Karkat. “Nice meeting you.”

“You too,” Karkat said, nodding.

Dave gave him a small, tight smile, then gestured for Dirk to follow him. Karkat was under the impression that it wasn’t necessary; as they walked out the door, Dirk grabbed onto Dave’s pant leg and gripped it tight.

Karkat mentally shrugged, clocked out of the computer, and went home for the day, saying goodbye to Kanaya and, for good measure, Feferi before he did.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the week was almost dull compared to what Karkat had expected. At one point, he’d mustered up the courage to change a diaper, and after that, it was nothing, so there was that. For the rest of the week, he didn’t hear Dirk speak once, not that he was really listening. Kanaya was his assistant until Thursday, when Feferi put her back in the infant room, which she preferred, and then a girl named Jade was in the room with him.

Karkat immediately liked Jade. She was friendly and outgoing and helpful without being overbearing. She knew the schedule for every room in the daycare, so she knew when to let the kids play freely (and loudly) and when to keep them quiet at the table with books or puzzles. She let Karkat know when it was time to change diapers, and did half of them herself. Everything transitioned smoothly, and when it came time for the kids to take a nap, they were all fast asleep fifteen minutes later.

“So how’s your first week going?” she asked politely when they were sitting down at the table. Karkat was writing up the kids’ daily reports, and Jade, who had taken care of the day’s cleaning in the morning, was sitting comfortably, watching the kids sleep.

“It’s all right. Not what I expected.”

“Or went to school for, right? Kanaya told us you wanted to teach high school.”

“Yeah, that’s what I wanted to do.”

“I know how that goes,” Jade said, grinning. “I’m in school for engineering, so I know your pain.”

Karkat looked at her incredulously. “What are you doing here, then? With teaching, I’m at least in kind of a similar field, but....”

Jade shrugged. “I worked in a lot of retail places and I hated them. I’m putting myself through school, so I couldn’t not work. I was sort of desperate for a job that wasn’t retail, so I applied to literally anywhere else, and this was the only place that called me back. I actually hated kids before I started working here, but they sort of grew on me. I’ll work in my field after I get my degree, but for now, I really love this job, and it pays my bills.”

“Huh.”

“So yeah, that’s my life story, hehe. What about you? Shouldn’t you be like. Preparing for the fall or something?”

“I should be, yes, but I am not,” Karkat grumbled. “There’s not a single opening for a high school teacher for at least fifty miles. I’ve looked. Very hard.”

Jade gave him a sympathetic look and said, “Aw, man, that sucks. I’m sorry.”

Karkat shrugged. “It’ll happen eventually. There are a few districts in Austin that have teachers up for retirement in the next couple of years. For now, I needed a job, and at least this is related to what I want to get into.”

“So how’d you come across this place?”

“Kanaya. She and I have been friends for a long time,” Karkat explained. “And when I couldn’t get a teaching job, she took pity on me and put in a good word for me.”

“That sounds like something Kanaya would do,” Jade said, grinning. “She’s so nice. She’s my favorite person to work with here, she’s just so... I don’t know. Calming? You know what I mean?”

Karkat, nodding, decided after that that he definitely liked Jade. Anyone who respected Kanaya was fine by him.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the week carried on uneventfully, unless you counted Mituna biting Aranea three times on Friday and getting sent home. Karkat still didn’t hear Dirk speak once, but he’d practically forgotten that he was supposed to be trying to listen. When Dave picked him up on Friday, Dirk seemed eager to leave, but Dave hung around and struck up a conversation.

“So how was the first week?” he asked conversationally. “You ready to pull your hair out yet?”

Karkat shrugged. “I don’t know what I was expecting a daycare to be like, but this definitely wasn’t it.”

“That bad?”

“No,” Karkat said, and he was surprised that it was true. “It really wasn’t. I was expecting more... I don’t know, screaming and tantrums and stup--dumb, unending streams of questions. And I mean. There were tantrums and screaming and being constantly asked ‘why’ every time I so much as drew breath.” That had been Aranea; she was a very nosy two year old, always wondering what he was doing--what everyone was doing, really--and why they were doing it, and he had struggled with his patience for a record-breaking amount of time before telling her--forcefully calm--to go play. “But nowhere near as much as I would have guessed.”

Dave smiled. “Even still, man, I don’t know how you do it. I have my hands full with one toddler as it is, I don’t know how anyone here deals with a room full of ‘em.”

“You have your hands full? With Dirk?” Karkat asked skeptically, looking down at Dirk, who was gripping Dave’s pant leg, but was otherwise motionless.

“Haha, yeah, you know, he may have been good for you this week, but just wait until something doesn’t go his way. He can be a real pain in the ass, huh, little man?” Dave asked, looking down at Dirk, who looked back up at Dave with a flat expression on his face. Dave chuckled, and Dirk started tugging on his pants again.

“All right, all right. Hold your horses, buddy, we’re going,” Dave promised. Then he looked back up at Karkat and said, “Well, have a nice weekend, man.”

“Thanks, you too. See you next week, Dirk,” Karkat said. Dirk looked at him, and Karkat felt strangely as though Dirk was sizing him up. He held the look for a moment, then raised a hand to curl his fingers in a goodbye wave. Dave beamed.

“All right. See you next week,” Dave said, then led Dirk out.

Feeling like he’d passed some sort of test he didn’t know he’d been issued, Karkat clocked out and went home. He said goodbye to all of his coworkers before he did.

 

* * *

 

“So, what do you think?” Kanaya asked. She’d invited him over for dinner that night, which was pretty common for a Friday. Sometimes Karkat had her over his place. It was a nice arrangement, especially when he’d been in school; it made him socialize at least once a week.

“It’s not too bad,” Karkat said, grabbing some dishes out of the cabinet. “I thought there would be a lot more yelling, but toddlers aren’t too bad. They listen a lot more than I would have guessed.”

“That’s good,” Kanaya said, pulling a tray of lasagna out of the oven. “I’m glad you don’t hate it, at least.”

Karkat shook his head and began to set the table. “No. Not yet, anyways.”

“Hm,” Kanaya hummed. She put the tray of lasagna down on a towel on the table. “Well, dig in,” she said.

“Thanks.”

While they ate, Kanaya asked him more questions about how he liked the daycare, what he thought of the kids, how the work was. It wasn’t until they were done, and Karkat was helping her load the dishwasher, that Kanaya said, “You know, I’ve never known Dave to be quite so talkative.”

“Who?”

“Dirk’s guardian.”

“His guardian?” Karkat asked, standing up straight and taking a plate from Kanaya. “That’s not his dad?”

“I don’t think so,” Kanaya said. “There should be a binder in your room with the kids’ information in it, you know, allergies, emergency contacts and that. Well, Dirk started in my room when he was six months, and on the sheet it only says ‘Guardian’ next to Dave’s name, not ‘Dad’ like the other kids.”

“Huh,” Karkat grunted. “I wonder what that’s about.”

“Yeah, I’ve always wondered,” Kanaya said. “But that’s not the point I was trying to make here. I was saying that I’ve never seen him have a conversation with anyone else. He seems to like you.”

“Well, I’m teaching his kid. Or. Charge, whatever, I don’t know what it’s called. His kid. He probably just wants to make sure I’m not a piece of shit or something.”

“No, Karkat, I don’t think that’s it. When Dirk started, he didn’t take a tour or talk to any of us or anything. He just came in and enrolled him, and Dirk started the next week.” Kanaya frowned. “None of us know anything about him. What he does for a living, how Dirk came to be in his guardianship. Nothing. He’s never held a conversation with any of us beyond asking how Dirk’s day was.”

“I don’t know, Kanaya, maybe he thinks it’s weird that I’m a guy working at a daycare. It’s normally all girls, right? He’s probably vetting me to make sure I’m not some kind of child predator.”

Kanaya hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe,” she said, in a tone that indicated she didn’t think that was true at all.

And then the subject was dropped. Karkat thought nothing more of it, but Kanaya made sure to keep an eye on their further conversations. She was a curious person.

 

* * *

 

Karkat’s first year of being a daycare teacher went by in a haze of laughter, yelling, and a lot of frustration with parents. There had been a few instances in particular that Karkat had had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from calling some of these people out on their poor parenting methods. It was strange being an objective outsider; he could see what a lot of these children needed--more discipline, more structure, speech therapy, and in one case, actual straight-up therapy--but Feferi told him (repeatedly) that it wasn’t his job to suggest these things to the parents, unless it was a continual problem at daycare, or unless they asked.

None of them ever did.

So Karkat did what he could where he could, and tried to comfort himself with the fact that at least he didn’t have to deal with some of these kids for the rest of their lives.

It didn’t help much, and as the year drew closer and closer to its end, it got harder for Karkat to keep his mouth shut. If ever the powers that be had decided to test his patience for oblivious ignorance, they couldn’t have chosen a better method.

 

* * *

 

There was one memory of the year that really stuck out in Karkat’s mind. It was the first time he’d ever heard Dirk’s voice.

It had been a regular day in late October, right up until naptime. He played by himself, followed whatever orders were given, all without a sound. He ate lunch (two whole oranges brought from home; Karkat was told that that was all he ever ate, he would throw anything else they tried to give him onto the floor, so Dave brought him his own lunch, and it was just oranges, every day), washed his hands, and went to the cot that he usually slept in.

Karkat had noticed, when laying out Dirk’s blanket (bright orange--it seemed to be his favorite color) that the weird puppet Dirk brought to school every day wasn’t in his bag. Shrugging, he put the blanket out and moved on to the next cot.

Dirk noticed that his puppet wasn’t there. Karkat watched him walk over to his cubby and look around in his bag. When he realized the puppet wasn’t there either, he turned to look at Karkat, who shrugged.

“It wasn’t in your bag, Dirk. It must have been left at home. Sorry, kid,” he said, and he meant it sincerely.

Dirk stood still for a moment, and then Karkat watched, in equal parts surprise and horror, as his eyes filled up with tears, spilling over.

Karkat moved over to pat him on the back, to try to comfort him, and he had just barely gotten a hand on Dirk’s shoulder when the screaming started.

Now, two year olds scream all the time, Karkat had learned, and for a great number of reasons: someone took their toy, and they’re mad, and they don’t know how else to express their anger; they’re very excited, and all that excitement is too much for their tiny bodies and they have to let that energy out some other way; someone hurt them, and they’re surprised, or they’re trying to get someone’s attention to help them; sometimes they just like to scream because they think it’s funny.

Karkat had never heard a child’s scream sound so sad.

“Hey, hey, hey, little guy, it’s okay,” he said, looking at Jade helplessly. She shrugged.

“He’s never not brought it before,” she explained, biting her lip. “I don’t know.”

Karkat turned back to Dirk, who had just taken a breath before he kept right on screaming. Tears and snot were gushing down his cheeks. Karkat tried to pick him up, but Dirk flailed around so much he almost dropped him, so Karkat put him back down.

“Do you wanna sit down?” he asked, putting a hand on Dirk’s back and trying to lead him back to his seat at the lunch table. The rest of the kids were watching fascinatedly, their lunch forgotten. Dirk screamed, if possible, louder.

“Okay, so no sitting down,” Karkat mumbled. He stood back up and walked over to the bin of stuffed animals, pulling out a plush doll. “How about this?” he offered. “Just for today?”

Dirk, still screaming, took the doll and threw it as far as he could. It wasn’t very far, but Karkat got the message.

Karkat was out of ideas. He looked at Jade, who shrugged again. “I’ve never seen him like this,” she told him. Her face was drawn in a sympathetic frown. “I think we’re gonna have to let him cry it out. There’s not much else we can do.”

Karkat frowned, looking back at Dirk. This wasn’t normal behavior for any kid, and it was extraordinarily uncharacteristic for Dirk. He wasn’t angry, or throwing a tantrum; he didn’t _do_ that, ever. As creepy as everybody else found that puppet, Dirk was attached to it, and he wasn’t just throwing a fit because he wanted it. He was throwing a fit because he needed it for comfort. He clung to that stupid puppet tighter than he clung to anything else, except maybe Dave’s pant leg.

Then Karkat had an idea.

“Dirk, why don’t you go sit down in the teacher chair, and we’ll call Dave and see if he can bring you your puppet?” Karkat suggested.

The screaming immediately stopped. He was still crying, though, and Jade kept mopping his face up as best she could with a tissue. Karkat dug around in the large cabinet near the door and found what he was looking for: “Emergency Contact Binder.”

He opened it up and flipped through the pages to ‘S.’ Serket, Aranea was listed, and then right after that was ‘Strider, Dirk.’ Karkat ran his finger down the page, found ‘Dave Strider -- Guardian’ ( _so Kanaya was right,_ he thought, remembering their conversation from a few months ago), then found the phone number.

“I’m gonna go grab the phone, I’ll be right back” he told Jade, who nodded, and started leading the other children to the sink to wash their hands. Karkat went to the office, where Feferi was sitting at her computer, typing.

“Hey, Feferi, can I use the phone?”

“Sure, Karkat. What’s the matter? Who is that screaming?” she asked, reaching over and pulling the phone off its port.

“It’s Dirk. He’s having a meltdown ‘cause Dave didn’t bring that creepy puppet today, I’m gonna ask if he could bring it in for him,” Karkat explained, taking the phone from her.

“Oh, wow,” Feferi said, putting a hand to her chin. “I’ve never heard a peep out of that kid, that’s weird. Poor little guy. He must really love that puppet.”

“Yeah, seriously.” Karkat thanked her and headed back to his room. Dirk was still sitting in the larger yellow chair that Karkat or Jade used for story time, sniffling piteously. He was still crying. Against his will, Karkat’s heart broke a little.

“All right, Dirk, let’s give Dave a call, okay?” he said, trying to sound cheerful. Dirk just watched him, still crying and sniffling, so Karkat said, “Okay,” and dialed the number.

It rang a couple times before a woman’s voice answered, “You’ve reached Dave Strider, this is his assistant speaking. How may I help you?”

“Uh,” Karkat said, faltering. He had expected Dave to answer; how did he explain to this woman that Dirk’s kid needed him? “Hi, I’m uh. Karkat Vantas, I work at. Um. Dave’s, uh. Kid’s daycare? Children’s Choice Day Care?”

“One moment please,” the voice said, and then the line cut to classical music.

“I’m on hold,” Karkat explained to Dirk, who did not take his teary eyes off of him for a moment.

For the first time, Karkat found himself actually curious about what it was Dave did for a living that he had a personal assistant screen his calls. He had just managed to finish the thought when the music shut off, and a more familiar voice came on.

“Dave Strider.”

“Hi, uh. Dave. This is Karkat. Um. Dirk’s teacher?” Karkat stuttered out.

“Uh. Hi. Is everything okay with Dirk?” Dave asked.

“Oh yeah, yeah, he’s all right, it’s just, uh. That puppet? It wasn’t in his bag, and--”

“Oh fuck. Is he all right?”

Hearing the sudden tension in his voice, Karkat switched automatically into Calming Mode. He usually used this on toddlers, but he figured it should work for an adult too. “He’s fine, he’s just fine. I mean. He’s a little upset, and he had a... well, kind of a total meltdown, but he’s sitting calmly in a chair now, and we were just wondering, if you have a few minutes, if you could maybe bring the puppet?”

“Shit, yeah, I’ll be right there. Tell him I’m really sorry, it was in his bag this morning, it must have fallen out on the way over here. I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” he said, then mumbled something too far from the receiver for Karkat to hear. It sounded like a string of curse words, to Karkat’s trained ear. “Could you tell him I’m bringing it now?”

“Uh. Well,” Karkat started, side-eyeing Dirk. “Do you wanna talk to him? He’s right here.”

“Can I?” Dave asked, relieved to near breathlessness. “If I can, that’d be great.”

“Yeah, sure, here he is,” Karkat said, handing the phone to Dirk. “It’s Dave. Say hi.”

Dirk didn’t say hi, but his sniffles must have indicated to Dave that he was on the line. Karkat couldn’t make out a word of what Dave was saying, but he could hear an incessant buzzing in the same pitch as Dave’s voice, so Karkat knew he was speaking to him. Dirk, apparently unaware that Dave couldn’t see him, nodded a couple times, and, miraculously, stopped crying. He sniffled a couple more times, and wiped his face on his sleeve before Karkat had time to grab a tissue. Another minute passed, and then Dirk nodded and handed the phone back over to Karkat.

“Hello?” he said.

“Okay, so it fell out of his bag this morning, it was on the floor by his car seat, I’ve got it. I’m on my way over now. Shouldn’t be more than twenty minutes.”

“That’s great,” Karkat said, relieved.

“I’m so sorry about this, if I’d noticed--”

“It’s all right,” Karkat said. “These things happen sometimes.”

“Yeah, but not to--” He cut himself off. Karkat could only wonder what he had been about to say. “Hm. Yeah, I’ll be there soon.”

“All right, we’ll see you when you get here,” Karkat said. “Thanks.”

“No, thank you for calling me. Cal is really important to Dirk, it would have been--. Well. Sorry. Yeah, thanks for calling, I’ll be there soon.” And then he hung up.

“Okay Dirk. Dave’s on his way with your puppet. Do you wanna wait on your cot?” Karkat suggested. Immediately, Dirk’s eyes filled with tears again, and Karkat blanched, “Or you can wait on the chair, that’s fine. Whatever you wanna do, kid.”

Dirk nodded, then turned around to watch out the window. Karkat let him be, and started cleaning the table up from lunch.

Twenty minutes later on the dot, a car, tires squealing, pulled in and parked, and Dirk walked calmly over to the gate. Dave burst in the door, in such a hurry that he didn’t enter his code, setting off the alarm. Karkat saw from the table that the puppet was in his arms, and Dave ran over to the gate, dropping to his knees.

“Hey, buddy, hey. I’m sorry little guy, I didn’t see it. I’m so sorry,” he said, handing the puppet over the gate, a hand immediately going to Dirk’s hair and stroking it. Dirk took Cal and hugged it close to him, nuzzling the top of its backwards baseball cap against his face. Then he tugged on Dave’s collar, and wrapped his free arm around Dave’s neck in a hug. And then without any further warning, he went over to his cot and laid down, hugging the puppet close to him. Jade went and sat down next to him, rubbing his back to help him fall asleep. Karkat watched, awestruck, and when Dirk was laying down, he stood and went over to the gate to talk to him.

“Thanks for bringing it,” he said, relieved. “Sorry to bother you at work, but he was really upset, nothing I did could get him to calm down until I told him I’d get you to bring it.”

“It’s okay. I know how he is. He needs that puppet. It was his dad’s,” Dave said solemnly. “My brother’s,” he further explained when Karkat looked at him. “He used to... to talk to him through the puppet, when he was a baby.” Dave looked at Dirk with an unreadable expression on his face. “He won’t go anywhere without it. He doesn’t have to be holding it or anything, he just. Needs to know it’s there.”

Karkat didn’t know what to say, so after a short pause, he softly said, “I’m sorry.”

Dave jolted, like he’d been shocked, then stood up. He was grinning widely. The sunglasses he was always wearing hid his eyes, but even still, Karkat could tell it wasn’t genuine. “Nothin’ to be sorry about, man. He’s got the puppet now, and order has been restored to the universe.”

“Uh. Right.”

“Thanks for calling me, though, seriously,” Dave said, dropping the fake grin. “If this ever happens again, please call me as soon as possible. I don’t want him to not have Cal.”

Karkat nodded. “Can do.”

Dave nodded, waved goodbye at Dirk’s sleeping form, said, “See you at five,” and then left.

When Dirk woke up, after he put the puppet carefully back in his bag, he gave Karkat a quick hug, then went about his playing. Karkat was floored. He didn’t mention it to Dave.

They never forgot the puppet after that.

 

* * *

 

So, his first year of daycare teaching went smoothly. On the first day of June, almost a year since he started at the daycare, he sent out his resume and waited.

And waited.

And kept waiting.

He never got a call back.

Resigned, he began his second year of teaching daycare.

 

* * *

 

Dirk moved up to the Pre-K 3 room in October.

“He should have been moved up in September,” Feferi explained, taking everything out of his cubby to move to his new room. “You know, with his birthday in December. But there wasn’t enough room in there until Horuss moved up to the fours, and he wasn’t old enough until today.”

“All right,” Karkat said. He was sad to see him go, but Dirk moving up meant there was enough room in his class for one of Kanaya’s to move into his room. Apparently, he was to receive a little girl named Jane, who Kanaya said was the sweetest little girl in the world. Karkat liked her immensely right from the start; she was cute, and played nicely with the other kids, and didn’t try to hit or bite or ask him what he was doing all the time, but she had a silly streak; her first day in the classroom, she tried to play Got-Your-Nose with Karkat, which had him almost in tears, he was laughing so hard. So, all in all, Karkat accepted the switch and considered it a pretty even trade, although he did go across the hall a few times to see if Dirk acted any differently. Just to sate his curiosity, he told Jade when she asked. He wasn’t worried about him at all.

Dirk was still Dirk, even in a new classroom; he still played quietly by himself, only ate oranges at lunch time, insisted on sleeping with his puppet, and listened and did what he was told. It was as if nothing had changed but the toys he was given to play with. Karkat was secretly relieved, and just a little disappointed that Dirk was so good about leaving his classroom.

The only one who seemed to mind the switch was Dave. He came in and walked over to Karkat’s room, and when he didn’t see Dirk, he froze.

“Where’s Dirk?” he asked. Karkat could hear a little nervousness in his voice; he could wear those stupid sunglasses all he wanted, but his voice was more expressive than he could hide.

Karkat pointed over to the Pre-K 3 room and said, “He’s been old enough to move up for a while now, and there’s room over there now, so we moved him over.”

“Oh.” Dave did not sound pleased with this; even his face showed subtle hints of disapproval.

Karkat didn’t know what to say. “I went over there to check on him a few times,” he told him. It was hard to tell, but he was pretty sure Dave had been staring at him. “Just to be sure, and he seemed like he was doing okay.”

“You did?” he asked.

Karkat nodded. “Yeah. You know. I just wanted to make sure he was all right over there.”

“Oh.” Karkat didn’t understand the tone of Dave’s voice, and he regretted saying anything. “Uh. Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“All right. Well, uh.” He cleared his throat. “I’ll go get him, then. I’ll... see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Have a nice night,” Karkat said.

“You too.”

Karkat clocked out for the day, and went home.

 

* * *

 

The next day, after getting Dirk, Dave walked over to Karkat’s room and said, “Say goodbye to Mr. Karkat, Dirk.”

Dirk just tugged on Dave’s pant leg, only briefly glancing at Karkat.

“Yeah,” Dave said fondly, ruffling Dirk’s hair before looking back up at Karkat and giving him a small smile. “Have a good night, man.”

“You too,” Karkat responded, baffled.

And then they left.

 

* * *

 

And that happened every day after that. Without fail, before he left, Dave would drag Dirk over and say goodbye to him, and only him, every day. Sometimes he stopped for a short conversation, sometimes he just said goodbye, but he always stopped to address Karkat in some way. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, but Kanaya wore this knowing little smirk that really pissed him off, so he ignored it and let Dave do what he wanted.

And honestly, talking to Dave was funny. He never learned anything new about the guy, but he had something to say about his day almost every day.

“You would not even believe what Ben did today,” he would say, then rant for five minutes about what Ben did, or else, “I swear to god, sometimes I think I’m the only person on the road that is capable of rational thought,” and once it was “Do you ever just, like. Forget to eat breakfast, and then when it’s like nine you realize you’re starving but there’s nothing around you to eat but old fruit? And you can’t even eat it because seriously, how long has that fruit even been there? Who put it there? Is it even real fruit, or is it that stupid wax decoration bullshit that looks too real, so when you bite into it everyone around you is like ‘haha yo bro look at this ignoramus, can’t even tell the difference between real and wax fruit.’”

Karkat had no idea what to make of him.

But if, when he thought about it, he felt a little bit thrilled by Dave’s attention every day, and if he purposely had an excuse to be by the gate at five o’clock precisely every day, well, he worked at a daycare. Not his fault time-out was right next to the door. Not his fault kids chose exactly five o’clock to misbehave. And all his coworkers pretended it wasn’t a weird coincidence, so really, what did it matter?

 

* * *

 

In the two years of being a daycare teacher, Karkat knew more about young kids than he’d ever expected to know, especially when it came to actually raising a child. Being able to see from the outside how different parenting choices affected the behavior of a kid really put a lot into perspective.

But he could work at a daycare for the rest of his life and he still didn’t think he would ever be able to figure out how it was that Dirk came to be how he was.

For some reason, Feferi didn’t like to call Dave. She said she was intimidated by him, but Karkat suspected Kanaya had discussed her theory with her, because one Friday, right in the middle of circle time, Feferi came in and asked Karkat if he wouldn’t mind giving Dave a call really quick.

With an eyebrow skeptically raised, Karkat asked, “Why?”

Feferi opened her mouth to speak, then for the first time in her life (or so Karkat assumed, given that she had a lot to say about literally everything) decided not to. She just gestured for him to follow her. Secretly a little worried that something might actually be wrong if Feferi couldn’t speak, Karkat got up to follow her, and Jade, with a happy smile, sat down and took over circle time.

“What is it, what’s wrong?”

“You just... need to see this,” Feferi said.

They reached the gate, and Karkat scanned the crowd of little heads for Dirk’s. He found him pretty quickly, and it took a minute for Karkat to connect what he was seeing with Feferi’s need to call Dave, but when he did, his jaw dropped.

“Dirk.”

Dirk glanced over.

“Why do you have a sword at school?”

Dirk pointed at the daily planner chart that was tacked to the wall, and Karkat looked at it. One of the rungs said “Show and Tell.”

“Is...” Karkat’s voice faltered as he realized the words he was about to say. “Is it a real sword?”

Dirk smiled and nodded, then pulled it out of it’s sheath far more deftly than a three year old should have been able to. Karkat almost screamed when he nearly hit Damara in the face with it; she didn’t even flinch.

“Dirk, honey,” Nepeta, the Pre-K 3 room teacher, said gently. “You already had your turn for show and tell, let the other kids have their turn now.”

If Karkat could drop his jaw any further, it would be on the ground. Nepeta was completely unbothered by the fact that there was a real, actual weapon in her classroom, and one of her students had almost decapitated another one with it.

“Give me the phone,” Karkat said quietly to Feferi. “I’ll call him.”

 

* * *

 

That had been an interesting conversation. Dave had somehow not noticed Dirk bringing a katana into school. The thing didn’t fit into his bag, it was too long, so how the hell did Dirk get it into the building without him seeing it? Dave had no idea, he didn’t even know where Dirk got a sword, but his dad had really liked swords too, maybe it was just with Dirk’s stuff when Dave picked it up, and he’d just never noticed it all these years.

Karkat started to think that maybe some behavior patterns were genetic after all.

But when Dave picked Dirk up that day, the first thing he did was whistle appreciatively at the sword Dirk carried in his other hand, and say, “Wow, Dirk. That is one rad sword, little dude. Puts every single one of mine to shame, huh?”

Dirk nodded, and Karkat had to sit on his hands to prevent him from slapping both of them to his forehead.

 

* * *

 

His second year of working at a daycare flew by before he knew it, and soon enough it was June again. On June first, he sent out his resume, and waited, but with perhaps a little less anxiety than he had the previous few years. If he didn’t get a call back (and he didn’t), well, he had a job that he didn’t hate, and he could deal with it for another year.

He began his third year as a daycare teacher with an unusual feeling of satisfaction.

 

* * *

 

Dirk moved up to the Pre-K 4 room early in September. This meant that this would be his last year in the daycare, since he’d be able to finish the entire year’s curriculum, and Karkat found that he was actually pretty disappointed about it. Dirk was a good kid, and Karkat liked him, especially since he had grown to like Karkat enough to wave goodbye to him every time Dave came to talk to him. Karkat knew for a fact that he would definitely miss Dave too.

It was obvious to everybody else in the daycare center but Karkat that Dave was flirting with him. Karkat stubbornly denied it, though he was secretly flattered that they all said so anyways. And sometimes he thought he could see what they meant; after all, Dave singled him out, every day, and talked to him every day, and made it a point to do so.

But maybe he was just being friendly. After all, if Dave were interested in him, why wouldn’t he just ask him out? He tried to use this logic on Kanaya, who sighed heavily and said, “Because when you talk to him, half the time you seem as though you may not mind it terribly, but the other half, you seem like it’s a chore to do so.”

“I do not,” Karkat argued. “I am perfectly pleasant with him all the time, in my own perfectly pleasant way. I even laugh when he says dumb shit that’s not funny. If that’s not flirting, then I’m gonna need you to tell me what IS, because apparently I have no fucking idea.”

Kanaya groaned, and refused to discuss it any more out of fear that trying to tackle that much obstinate denial in one conversation would start her going grey.

 

* * *

 

That year, Houston had snow in late February. Two and a half inches, to be precise. Hailing from Virginia, Karkat had dealt with snow often enough not to be afraid of it, so he went to work. Most Texans, however, had not, and so when he got there, there were only three older kids and one infant. Feferi said that almost all of the parents’ jobs had issued a snow day, and most of those whose hadn’t close for the day had called in sick anyways. This left them with Dirk and Roxy, both of whom were in the Pre-K 4 room, Meenah, who was one of Karkat’s toddlers, and the infant, Latula, who was almost old enough to move into Karkat’s room anyways.

Karkat volunteered to stay for the day, since he wasn’t worried about the snow in case it got worse, and Kanaya, who had also dealt with snow often enough in her life not to be nervous, volunteered to close the place up with him. Feferi gratefully left them to it, and so it was just the two of them and the four kids the entire day.

It was a lot of fun. The TV in Karkat’s room had a VCR, even though they weren’t supposed to watch movies, but Kanaya made some popcorn, and the six of them watched Disney movies and munched on popcorn until lunch time, when Karkat grilled some cheese sandwiches. Kanaya set out plates, and they all ate sandwiches and green beans and pears, and it wasn’t until Dirk had thrown out his plate that Karkat and Kanaya realized he’d eaten it.

And that wasn’t even the weirdest thing to happen that day.

They decided to keep Latula in the same room for nap time, and she fell asleep quickly on her cot. Meenah was next to sleep, and then it was just Roxy and Dirk still awake. Kanaya was sitting with Roxy, and Karkat was sitting with Dirk, and all they heard was the quiet lullaby CD they put on at naptime and the rhythmic patting when suddenly, someone said, “Mr. Karkat.”

Karkat looked around for the source of the sound before Dirk repeated himself. “Mr. Karkat.”

Too shocked to speak, Karkat looked over at Kanaya to see if she had heard. She was staring, wide-eyed, at Karkat, so he looked back down and said, “What’s up, Dirk?”

Dirk sat up, looked Karkat straight in the eye, and said, almost completely tonelessly, “Dave says you’re a hot piece of ass. I told him he should tell you, ‘cause Dave says it’s not nice to keep secrets from your friends, but he won’t, so I had to do it for him. And he likes your hair, he says it’s nice all the time.”

In a move that was extremely out of character for her, Kanaya shouted, “YES! I KNEW IT!” before remembering that there were two sleeping children next to her, and she clamped her hands over her mouth.

Karkat, completely shell-shocked both by Dirk actually talking and by what Dirk had said, could only stare wide-eyed at Dirk, his face rocketing through the different shades of red, and, barely realizing what he was saying, mumble out, “‘Ass’ is a bad word, don’t say it, it’s for adults.”

“Oh,” was all he said, then he laid back down, hugged the puppet close to him, and closed his eyes. He was asleep within a minute. Karkat hadn’t moved.

 

* * *

 

“So, he thinks you’re hot,” Kanaya said smugly.

Karkat ignored her.

“You heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, Karkat. You can’t deny it now. Where else would he have heard that from if Dave didn’t say it?” Kanaya pointed out.

“Just look at that snow, it’s really coming down,” Karkat said, a little louder than he should have.

“Karkat.” He turned to look at her, and saw that her arms were crossed, and she had a fiercely determined look on her face. “It has been almost three years. If you don’t say something to him, I’m going to.” Seeing the look that crossed Karkat’s face, she said, “Today. And I mean it.”

Karkat turned to look back at Dirk, who was fast asleep, and cursed Kanaya’s stupid, smug, meddling face in his head until he ran out of words to think.

 

* * *

 

He’d known Dave for a little more than two and a half years now. He knew that Dave was a good guardian to Dirk, and that he was kind of a silly person. He knew something had happened to his brother a few years ago, and he knew that he gave Dirk a lot of leniency because of it. And he knew the names of a good portion of Dave’s coworkers, and that he hated traffic.

Apart from that, Dave Strider was still a complete mystery.

But that was the point of a date, right? To get to know somebody better?

Karkat didn’t know what to do.

If he were being honest with himself, he’d been interested in Dave since the first day they’d met. At first, it had just been typical curiosity; his kid was a complete mystery, so the man behind the upbringing should have shed a little light on the subject, but Dave was a bigger mystery than Dirk was. He also thought Dave might be a little bit of a tool, but that was quickly disproven when he realized how sincerely odd he was. His curiosity, over time, had morphed into a grudging respect, then into honest respect, then into a little crush, a spark of interest, and then, in the past year, as Dave talked to him longer and longer every day, sometimes keeping him from clocking out for almost half an hour, he came to realize that he genuinely liked Dave, and he really wanted to get to know him better.

And thinking of it that way, it became pretty clear what Karkat wanted to do.

 

* * *

 

Dirk was the last kid to get picked up. Karkat was secretly very grateful for this; if he was about to get rejected, he definitely didn’t want there to be any witnesses, especially not in the form of anybody under the age of five.

Kanaya had gone to take care of the various closing duties, so it was just Karkat and Dirk in the room when Dave walked in. He grinned when he saw the two of them sitting at a table, doing a puzzle, and he walked right into the room and leaned over behind Dirk.

“Whatcha solving?” he asked, peering down over the top of his sunglasses to see the picture.

“A fire truck,” Karkat explained, putting a piece in the center. His stomach was suddenly a flutter of nerves; he knew Kanaya very well, and had no doubt that she would keep her promise. How was he supposed to tell Dave? How did he even bring it up?

It turned out he wouldn’t have to.

“I told Mr. Karkat what you said,” Dirk said, startling the older two.

“Uh.” Dave asked after a moment. “What did I say?”

Karkat felt him looking at him, but couldn’t meet his eye, and he cursed his traitorous face for going red.

“That you said he’s a hot piece of butt and that you like his hair,” Dirk explained easily, putting down a puzzle piece. “I actually said ‘ass’ but Mr. Karkat says that’s a bad word and I can’t say it.”

Karkat absolutely refused to look at Dave, so he had no idea how he reacted to this information.

“Dirk,” Dave said, and Karkat was pleased to hear that his voice was a little strained. “Why don’t you go get your stuff?”

“Okay,” Dirk said, and if Karkat weren’t so mortified by what Dirk was saying, he’d be thrilled that he apparently decided to lift his speaking ban so much in one day. He crumpled what they’d completed of the puzzle up and dragged his arm across the table, pushing all the pieces back into the box. He put it back on the shelf, then calmly exited the room.

And now Dave and Karkat were alone, and Karkat had no idea what to say.

And apparently neither did Dave, for once, because they sat in a very uncomfortable silence for at least a full minute. It was agonizing; Karkat felt his blood pressure rise steadily the entire time. He had to say something. Anything to break this crushingly awkward silence.

“Uh...” Karkat started. “So, um. If you would want to--”

“Forget this ever happened?” Dave said desperately. “Yes, please and thanks.” Then he put his face in his hands. “I’m so sorry. I never expected Dirk to actually talk to you, he’s really shy, he never talks to anyone but me, I’m really sorry.”

“It’s--”

“I mean, you’ve been here for, what, two and a half years now? More? And he’s never said a word to you before, so I figured it would be fine if I just kind of monologued at him and. Wow. Wait, that’s not what I meant.”

“Dave, I--”

“I mean it’s not like I talk about you all the time or anything,” he carried on, apparently desperate to get his point across. Karkat decided to just let him rant. Maybe at some point, either Dave would stop talking or he’d die of asphyxiation, and Karkat could finally get a word in. “Just. Like. Sometimes. Rarely. Like one time.”

“A lot,” Dirk said, peering around the doorframe. He had evidently been waiting outside.

“Go get your stuff, Dirk,” Dave snapped.

In response, Dirk held up his backpack, which was stuffed full.

“Go double check you’ve got everything, please,” Dave said firmly. Dirk smirked, and walked back over to his classroom.

“Okay, so maybe it was more than once,” Dave admitted reluctantly. “But to be fair, you’re like the only person I talk to here, so what else are we gonna talk about after I ask him about his day? He doesn’t care about my work ‘cause he’s four, and at least you’re common ground, he knows you, so if we talk about you or if I tell him that you’re a good looking dude, well, that’s something for us to talk about, right? And he’s gotta talk, you know. Sometimes. About something. At least if we talk about school things he can be involved in the conversation, and speaking of being involved in the conversation, I am totally excluding you from this one. My bad, dude. So like. If you wanna just forget this all happened, I mean, no witnesses, it never happened, we can just. Water under the bridge, right? It never happened. I mean. It’s.” He tugged on his tie, loosening it nervously. “I’m not gonna lie, I do think you’re a good looking dude. And I may have expressed this to Dirk--pooooooossibly more than once. So like. If you wanna take that as a compliment, be my guest, I was never gonna mention it, ‘cause like. I don’t know what you’re all about in your personal preferences with regards to gender, so. Sorry that this happened, I guess. We can just. Pretend this didn’t happen, if you want, or. Ball’s in your court dude. Time for you to take it to halftime and lockdown the sports goal or whatever.”

Then he finally stopped talking. Karkat wasn’t actually expecting him to stop, so he waited for a moment, expecting more nervous word vomit. When it became clear that Dave had really stopped of his own free will, and once Karkat made sure he hadn’t actually suffocated and reassured himself that an ambulance wasn’t necessary, he decided it was his turn to talk.

“So, can I maybe get your number?” he said weakly. “And maybe we could go out for coffee or something?”

Dave apparently wasn’t expecting this response, because he immediately launched into more apologies. “Yeah, man, like I said, just forget it ever happened, you know, and I’m sorry again, like I said, I wasn’t expecting Dirk to actually say anything to you, but--”

“Dave,” Dirk said. Apparently, he was still hiding behind the doorframe. “You should give Mr. Karkat your phone number. He asked you real nice.”

“Yeah, yeah, I could give him my phone number,” Dave said, still in that nervous, rambling tone of voice. “I.” Then he stopped and looked at Karkat, who was watching him with one eyebrow arched skeptically. Dave’s face shot straight to fire engine red, and he said, “Uh. Yeah. I can give you my number, you got a pen?”

 

* * *

 

They wound up going out that Friday night. Dave didn’t know anybody he could trust to watch Dirk (he nervously explained he’d never needed a sitter before, so he didn’t even know who he could ask), so he wound up tagging along, which was fine by Karkat. At least with Dirk there that had someone to break the ice, and something to talk about, and someone else to direct their conversation toward when they couldn’t think of anything to say to each other. They went to Dave and Buster’s, and Karkat lost horribly against Dirk in almost every game they played together. He didn’t take it personally; he didn’t play a lot of video games anyways. Karkat had to tell Dave multiple times that he had fun, and that he wouldn’t mind doing it again some time.

They went out often, the three of them. After a few months, Dave caved in and let Karkat ask Kanaya to babysit Dirk so they could go on an actual date. Karkat was very pleased to realize that they were just as able to hold a conversation without Dirk there. He learned a lot about Dave that night; what he did for a living (directing movies), what he liked to do in his free time (play with Dirk, take pictures of Dirk, plan for Dirk’s future, sometimes make music when he was able to distract himself from worrying about Dirk long enough), what his tastes were in movies and music and books. Surprisingly, Karkat found that they had a lot in common; there was a lot of talking done that night, and not a single awkward moment (that is, until the next morning when they had to pick Dirk up from Kanaya’s and explain what took them so long).

The day that Dirk graduated from Pre-K, Karkat attended the ceremony with Dave, who was very gallantly trying (and failing) not to cry. Karkat and Dirk made fun of him for it, but Dave refused to admit to it, and it wasn’t funny when Karkat realized that this meant Dirk would really be leaving the daycare. He didn’t cry, but he came pretty close.

He tried, a few days later, to submit his resume, but decided that he wouldn’t mind waiting another year. It took him five years before he could bring himself to go through with it, and he did eventually start teaching in high school. He was an emotional wreck on his last day at the daycare; he didn’t realize how much he liked the job--and particularly the kids--until it came time to leave. He went to Dave’s immediately after he left, and Dave had been very supportive; Karkat was grateful to have him there.

 

* * *

 

A few months after he graduated Pre-K, Dirk started Kindergarten. Karkat called in sick to work that day, because Dave had had a panic attack at the idea of Dirk being in a real school with a lot of kids, and what if he didn’t make any friends? What if the other kids were mean to him? What if the teacher sucked and turned Dirk off of school altogether? But his nervousness was unnecessary; when they picked him up, Dirk talked the whole way home about his three new friends, his very nice teacher, and his appreciation and enthusiasm for school.

Karkat was there for every bump in the road; when Dirk had to get his appendix removed, Karkat was there to reassure Dave that it was a minor surgery and that Dirk would be fine. When Dirk got in his first fight with his friends, Karkat was there to help Dave reassure him that people fought sometimes, and that it was okay. When Dirk started middle school, Karkat was there to pick him up at the end of the day and listen to all of Dirk’s preteen woes.

When Dirk brought Jake home halfway through his sophomore year and introduced him as his boyfriend, Karkat was there to keep Dave from threatening the poor boy with his entire arsenal of swords.

And when Dirk graduated high school, got into a prestigious engineering college halfway across the country, and moved out, Karkat was there to hold Dave’s hand and assure him that he’d done a good job.

“Well, don’t sell yourself short,” Dave said, subtly wiping his eyes. “You were there for damn near all of it.” He nudged Karkat with his elbow. “We done good, huh, Karkat?”

“Yeah,” Karkat agreed, pushing his feet to rock the two of them gently on their porch swing. “We did pretty good.”


End file.
